THE ATTICA THAT DIDN'T HAPPEN One year after Attica, there was
a prisoner revolt at the Washington, DC Jail during which the
director of DC Corrections and a number of guards were taken
hostage. But, unlike Attica, no one was killed. Perhaps this
is why so few remember what happened on a night when judges,
politicians, U.S. Marshals, prisoners, and hostages all gathered
in Courtroom 16 to see what could be done - brought together
by a single judge who wasn't afraid to talk when others wanted
to shoot. The peaceful resolution of the DC Jail uprising was
one of the most extraordinary stories I ever covered - Sam
Smith

BUSH REGIME BUILDING
CONCENTRATION CAMPS BACKED BY DEMOCRATIC CONGRESS' APPROVAL OF
MARTIAL LAW

LEWIS SEILER & DAN
HAMBURG, SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE - Since 9/11, and seemingly
without the notice of most Americans, the federal government
has assumed the authority to institute martial law, arrest a
wide swath of dissidents (citizen and non-citizen alike), and
detain people without legal or constitutional recourse in the
event of "an emergency influx of immigrants in the U.S.,
or to support the rapid development of new programs."

Beginning in 1999, the
government has entered into a series of single-bid contracts
with Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root to build
detention camps at undisclosed locations within the United States.
The government has also contracted with several companies to
build thousands of railcars, some reportedly equipped with shackles,
ostensibly to transport detainees.

According to diplomat
and author Peter Dale Scott, the KBR contract is part of a Homeland
Security plan titled ENDGAME, which sets as its goal the removal
of "all removable aliens" and "potential terrorists."

Fraud-busters such as
Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Los Angeles, have complained about these
contracts, saying that more taxpayer dollars should not go to
taxpayer-gouging Halliburton. But the real question is: What
kind of "new programs" require the construction and
refurbishment of detention facilities in nearly every state of
the union with the capacity to house perhaps millions of people?

Sect. 1042 of the 2007
National Defense Authorization Act, "Use of the Armed Forces
in Major Public Emergencies," gives the executive the power
to invoke martial law. For the first time in more than a century,
the president is now authorized to use the military in response
to "a natural disaster, a disease outbreak, a terrorist
attack or any other condition in which the President determines
that domestic violence has occurred to the extent that state
officials cannot maintain public order."

The Military Commissions
Act of 2006, rammed through Congress just before the 2006 midterm
elections, allows for the indefinite imprisonment of anyone who
donates money to a charity that turns up on a list of "terrorist"
organizations, or who speaks out against the government's policies.
The law calls for secret trials for citizens and non-citizens
alike.

Also in 2007, the White
House quietly issued National Security Presidential Directive
51 (NSPD-51), to ensure "continuity of government"
in the event of what the document vaguely calls a "catastrophic
emergency." Should the president determine that such an
emergency has occurred, he and he alone is empowered to do whatever
he deems necessary to ensure "continuity of government."
This could include everything from canceling elections to suspending
the Constitution to launching a nuclear attack. Congress has
yet to hold a single hearing on NSPD-51.

U.S. Rep. Jane Harman,
D-Venice has come up with a new way to expand the domestic "war
on terror." Her Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism
Prevention Act of 2007 (HR1955), which passed the House by the
lopsided vote of 404-6, would set up a commission to "examine
and report upon the facts and causes" of so-called violent
radicalism and extremist ideology, then make legislative recommendations
on combating it. . . investigative power to combat it.

A clue as to where Harman's
commission might be aiming is the Animal Enterprise Terrorism
Act, a law that labels those who "engage in sit-ins, civil
disobedience, trespass, or any other crime in the name of animal
rights" as terrorists. Other groups in the crosshairs could
be anti-abortion protesters, anti-tax agitators, immigration
activists, environmentalists, peace demonstrators, Second Amendment
rights supporters ... the list goes on and on. According to author
Naomi Wolf, the National Counterterrorism Center holds the names
of roughly 775,000 "terror suspects" with the number
increasing by 20,000 per month.

What could the government
be contemplating that leads it to make contingency plans to detain
without recourse millions of its own citizens?

The Constitution does
not allow the executive to have unchecked power under any circumstances.
The people must not allow the president to use the war on terrorism
to rule by fear instead of by law.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8067

UNLOCKING AMERICA: THE DAMAGE
OUR PRISON POLICIES DO

RICK MOORE A major report entitled "Unlocking
America," coauthored by nine leading criminology and penal
experts--including the University of Minnesota's Joshua Page--explores
the causes of the exploding prison population and offers suggestions
for reversing the numbers. Among the report's recommendations
are eliminating prison as a sanction for technical parole and
probation violations, reducing the length of some prison sentences,
and reducing the number of people incarcerated for "victimless"
crimes, including many drug offenses.

"We need to reduce the number
of people that are going to prison and be methodical about reserving
prison beds and allocating resources for the most serious and
violent offenders, and figure out alternative sanctions for other
offenders," Page says.

According to Page, the number
of people incarcerated grew for various reasons. More people
have been given prison sentences instead of alternative sanctions
such as probation, particularly for drug offenses. In addition,
sentences have become longer, with mandatory minimum sentences
and the implementation of "truth-in-sentencing"--which
reduces the amount of time that can be deducted from a sentence
for good behavior (making it more "true" to the original
sentence).

Last year, roughly 32 percent
of new admissions to Minnesota prisons were for people who violated
the terms of their probation or parole, known as "technical
violators," [Joshua Page, assistant professor of sociology
at the University of Minnesota] says. (This could be for reasons
like failing a drug test or not finding work.) "And then
if you add the 21.6 percent that are for drug offenses, more
than half of Minnesota's prison population are for [technical]
violators and drugs." Page and the other authors [of a new
report] recommend de-criminalizing victimless crimes, meaning
people would not receive any criminal punishment for drug use,
prostitution, and the like. They also suggest that states use
alternative sanctions for some offenders who currently serve
prison sentences--for instance, selective property offenders.
Options might include paying restitution or performing community
service, whether it's picking up trash on the side of the road
or serving food at a homeless shelter.

UNLOCKING AMERICAPresident
Bush was right. A prison sentence for Lewis "Scooter"
Libby was excessive- so too was the long three year probation
term. But while he was at it, President Bush should have commuted
the sentences of hundreds of thousands of Americans who each
year have also received prison sentences for crimes that pose
little if any danger or harm to our society. In the United States,
every year since 1970, when only 196,429 persons were in state
and federal prisons, the prison population has grown. Today there
are over 1.5 million in state and federal prisons. Another 750,000
are in the nation's jails. The growth has been constant- in years
of rising crime and falling crime, in good economic times and
bad, during wartime and while we were at peace. A generation
of growth has produced prison populations that are now eight
times what they were in 1970. And there is no end to the growth
under current policies.

The PEW Charitable Trust reports
that under current sentencing policies the state and federal
prison populations will grow by another 192,000 prisoners over
the next five years. The incarceration rate will increase from
491 to 562 per 100,000 population. And the nation will have to
spend an additional $27.5 billion in operational and construction
costs over this fi ve-year period on top of the over $60 billion
now being spent on corrections each year.

This generation-long growth of
imprisonment has occurred not because of growing crime rates,
but because of changes in sentencing policy that resulted in
dramatic increases in the proportion of felony convictions resulting
in prison sentences and in the length-of-stay in prison that
those sentences required. . . .

Prisons are self-fueling systems.
About two-thirds of the 650,000 prison admissions are persons
who have failed probation or parole - approximately half of these
people have been sent to prison for technical violations. Having
served their sentences, roughly 650,000 people are released each
year having served an average of 2-3 years. About 40% will ultimately
be sent back to prison as "recidivists"- in many states,
for petty drug and property crimes or violations of parole requirements
that do not even constitute crimes. This high rate of recidivism
is, in part, a result of a range of policies that increase surveillance
over people released from prison, impose obstacles to their reentry
into society, and eliminate support systems that ease their transition
from prison to the streets.

Prison policy has exacerbated
the festering national problem of social and racial inequality.
Incarceration rates for blacks and Latinos are now more than
six times higher than for whites; 60% of America's prison population
is either African-American or Latino. A shocking eight percent
of black men of working age are now behind bars, and 21% of those
between the ages of 25 and 44 have served a sentence at some
point in their lives. At current rates, one-third of all black
males, one-sixth of Latino males, and one in 17 white males will
go to prison during their lives. Incarceration rates this high
are a national tragedy.2 Women now represent the fastest growing
group of incarcerated persons. In 2001, they were more than three
times as likely to end up in prison as in 1974, largely due to
their low-level involvement in drug-related activity and the
deeply punitive sentencing policies aimed at drugs. The massive
incarceration of young males from mostly poor- and working-class
neighborhoods- and the taking of women from their families and
jobs- has crippled their potential for forming healthy families
and achieving economic gains. The authors of this report have
spent their careers studying crime and punishment. We are convinced
that we need a different strategy. Our contemporary laws. . .

By far the major reason for the
increase in prison populations at least since 1990 has been longer
lengths of imprisonment. The adoption of truth in sentencing
provisions that require prisoners to serve most of their sentences
in prison, a wide variety of mandatory minimum sentencing provisions
that prevent judges from placing defendants on probation even
when their involvement in the conduct that led to the conviction
was minor, reductions in the amount of good time a prisoner can
receive while imprisoned, and more conservative parole boards
have significantly impacted the length of stay. For example,
in a special study by the U.S. Department of Justice on truth
in sentencing, between 1990 and 1997, the numbers of prison admissions
increased by only 17% (from 460,739 to 540,748), while the prison
population increased by 60% (from 689,577 to 1,100,850). . .
.

Proponents of prison expansion
have heralded this growth as a smashing success. But a large
number of studies contradict that claim. Most scientific evidence
suggests that there is little if any relationship between fluctuations
in crime rates and incarceration rates. In many cases, crime
rates have risen or declined independent of imprisonment rates.
New York City, for example, has produced one of the nation's
largest declines in crime in the nation while significantly reducing
its jail and prison populations.Connecticut, New Jersey, Ohio,
and Massachusetts have also reduced their prison populations
during the same time that crime rates were declining. A study
of crime and incarceration rates from 1980 to 1991 in all 50
states and the District of Columbia shows that incarceration
rates exploded during this period. The states that increased
incarceration rates the least were just as likely to experience
decreases in crime as those that increased them the most. . .
Other studies reach similar conclusions, finding "no consistent
relationship between incarceration rates and crime rates"
and "no support for the âmore prisoners,
less crime' thesis." . . .

Incarceration may not have had
much impact on crime, but it has had numerous unintended consequences,
ranging from racial injustice and damage to families and children
to worsening public health, civic disengagement, and even increases
in crime. Bruce Western demonstrates the extraordinarily disparate
impact of imprisonment on young black males compared to any other
subgroup of society. For example, he shows that nearly one-half
of all young black males who have not finished high school are
behind bars, an incarceration rate that is six times higher than
for white male dropouts. He then shows how incarceration damages
the lifetime earnings, labor market participation, and marriage
prospects for those who have been to prison and concludes that
the U.S. prison system exacerbates and sustains racial inequality.
British penologists Joseph Murray and David Farrington have analyzed
data sets about child development from three nations and found
that parental incarceration contributes to higher rates of delinquency,
mental illness, and drug abuse, and reduces levels of school
success and later employment among their children. . .

The failure of efforts to develop
methods of accurately identifying the small number of offenders
who do commit particularly horrendous crimes after serving their
sentences fueled demands for longer sentences across the board.
The logic of this argument was that if we can't single out the
truly dangerous, we will assume that anyone with two or three
convictions for a relatively wide range of offenses is a dangerous
habitual criminal, and keep them all in prison for an extremely
long time. On the basis of this reasoning, a number of states
adopted mandatory sentencing, truth in sentencing and in some
states "three strikes" laws, all of which extend prison
sentences. These laws have done little to reduce crime. Few convicted
persons have the requisite number of previous felony convictions
to qualify for the enhanced sentences. This is because rates
of return to serious crime on the part of those released from
prison are not high. Just 1.2% of those who served time for homicide
and were released in 1994 were rearrested for a new homicide
within three years of release, and just 2.5% of released rapists
were arrested for another rape. Sex offenders were less likely
than non-sex-offenders to be rearrested for any offense. . .
.

The U.S. Department of Justice
conducted a major study of criminal involvement of prisoners
who had been released in 1994. It found that only 5% of the 3
million arrests made in seven states between 1994 and 1997 were
of recently released prisoners.47 California's "three strikes"
law has had a number of evaluations; almost all found that it
failed to reduce crime. These studies make clear that, while
many people who are released from prison end up back behind bars,
they are but a fraction of the overall crime problem. Lengthening
their sentences, as a means of dealing with crime will at best
have only marginal impact. . .

At the turn of the 19th century
reformers realized that brutal prisons embitter prisoners rather
than reform them. Yet this persistent faith that prisoners can
be discouraged from returning to crime by subjecting them to
harsh penalties, or that the population at large can be deterred
more effectively with severe penalties than with milder ones,
has never had empirical support. Decades of research on capital
punishment have failed to produce compelling evidence that it
prevents homicide more effectively than long prison sentences.
Community penalties, it has been shown, are at least as effective
in discouraging return to crime as institutional penalties. Rigorous
prison conditions substantially increase recidivism. Evaluations
show that boot camps and "scared straight" programs
either have no effect on recidivism or increase it.

2007

FROM OUR
OVERSTOCKED ARCHIVES

In 1975 we
published this comparison between a DC Jail cell and a Volkswagon,
drawn by Washington architect Rich Ridley

INDENTURED SERVITUDE IN FULL
SWING IN U.S. PRISONS

EZEKIEL EDWARDS, DRUM MAJOR INSTITUTE - J. Tony Serra, a well-known California
attorney, has brought a suit in federal court in San Francisco
on behalf of inmates against a federal prison camp in Santa Barbara
County challenging its prison pay system which compensates inmates
for their labor at between 5 cents and $1.65 an hour. Serra knows
what its like to labor for so little: he just spent 10 months
in the prison for tax evasion and made 19 cents an hour.

According to the San Francisco
Chronicle, Serra described a "nationwide network of prison
camps churning out products made by low-paid inmates for contractors
and federal agencies that might ... otherwise buy the same goods
from unionized private plants.". . .

The federal government's prison
industries program, also known as UNICOR, by 2003 operated 100
factories generating over $665 million in sales using 20,274
prisoners. The prisoners are paid far below minimum wage and
often work in unsafe environments, since FPI is not bound by
the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

In addition to taking advantage
of cheap labor, both government-run and private prisons also
provide employment for thousands of people outside the prisons,
from wardens to guards to construction workers to businessmen.
Corrections Corporation of America, the world's largest private
prison corporation, operates 59 facilities in 20 states, Puerto
Rico, the United Kingdom and Australia, despite being plagued
by mismanagement and scandals, including inadequate health care
and mental, emotional, and physical abuse of inmates within its
prison walls (some of which resulted in death). . .

As Grassroots Leadership has
observed, "the existence of an industry based on incarceration
for profit creates a commercial incentive in favor of government
policies that keep more people behind bars for longer periods
of time."

Any discussion about reducing
our prison population, pulling out of the war on drugs, or otherwise
reforming the criminal justice system, faces a huge obstacle:
the prison industry. From politicians who rely on prisons for
their senate seats to counties that rely on federal funds because
of the inflated size of its unemployed "residents",
from correction guards and their powerful unions to entire towns
employed by prisons, from the police narcotics units to narcotics
prosecutors, all have a keen financial interest in keeping the
prison industry alive and kicking, if not constantly growing,
even if at the expense of the liberty of fellow citizens.

It seems that, after money itself,
prisons have become this country's primary domestic drug of choice,
a drug which is destroying this nation from within and a habit
we need desperately to kick.

WHY EXCESSIVE INCARCERATION
DOESN'T WORK

EZEKIEL EDWARDS, DMI BLOG - The number of inmates incarcerated
for drug possession between 1980 and 2005 grew by more than 1000%
and now cost $8.3 billion dollars every year. As a result, between
1985 and 2004, states increased spending on corrections by 202%,
while spending on public assistance decreased by more than 60%,
and spending on higher education, Medicaid, and secondary/elementary
education grew by just 3%, 47 %, and 55% respectively.

With an eye towards our prison
epidemic, the Vera Institute of Justice released a report recently
on imprisonment in America titled "Reconsidering Incarceration:
New Directions for Reducing Crime". Here is a summary of
its findings:

- Research shows that while the
U.S. experienced a dramatic drop in crime between 1992 and 1997,
imprisonment was responsible for just 25% of that reduction.

- The remaining 75% was caused
by other factors, including lower unemployment, higher wages,
more education, more high school graduates, fewer young persons
in the population, increase in the number of police officers
(provided that the number of police did not necessarily translate
into more arrests), and decreases in crack cocaine markets.

- The impact of incarceration
on crime is inconsistent from one study to the next (research
suggests that a 10% increase in incarceration could lead to no
difference in the crime rate, or a 22% decrease, or a decrease
only in property crime). The most consistent figure is that a
10% increase in imprisonment results in a 2% to 4% drop in crime
rates.

- Researchers focusing on specific
neighborhoods found that more incarceration can actually increase
crime rates, arguing that "high rates of imprisonment break
down the social and family bonds that guide individuals away
from crime, remove adults who would otherwise nurture children,
deprive communities of income, reduce future income potential,
and engender a deep resentment toward the legal system. As a
result, as communities become less capable of maintaining social
order through families or social groups, crime rates go up."

-Increases in prison populations
in states which already have large prison populations have less
impact on crime (and eventually begin to increase crime rates)
than in states with smaller prison populations.

- Analysts are nearly unanimous
in their conclusion that continued growth in incarceration will
prevent considerably fewer, if any, crimes, and at substantially
greater costs to taxpayers.

- The more employment, the less
crime. Imprisonment reduces employment, and hence can foster
more crime. "Incarceration creates problems of low earnings
and irregular employment for individuals after release from prison
by dissuading employers from hiring them, disqualifying them
from certain professions, eroding job skills, limiting acquisition
from work experience, creating behaviors inconsistent with work
routines outside prison, and undermining social connections to
good job opportunities." Moreover, employers may shun neighborhoods
with high incarceration rates, and prison can generate connections
to illegal rather than legal employment. . .

- Research showed that a 10%
increase in real wages produced significant decreases in both
real property and violent crime.

- An increase in citizens' education
levels were associated with lower crime rates . . . Researchers
argued that a 1% increase in male high school graduation rates
would save the country $1.4 billion through crime reduction.
Moreover, prison-based education programs were found to dramatically
reduce recidivism rates. . .

2006

PRISON LABOR: THE NEW SLAVERY

CHRIS LEVISTER, NEW AMERICA MEDIA
- As a child Ayana Cole dreamed of becoming a world class fashion
designer. Today she is among hundreds of inmates crowded in an
Oregon prison factory cranking out designer jeans. For her labor
she is paid 45 cents an hour. At a chic Beverly Hills boutique
some of the beaded creations carry a $350 price tag. In fact
the jeans labeled "Prison Blues" -- proved so popular
last year that prison factories couldn't keep up with demand.
At a San Diego private-run prison factory Donovan Thomas earns
21 cents an hour manufacturing office equipment used in some
of LA's plushest office towers. In Chino Gary's prison sewn T-
shirts are a fashion hit.

Hundreds of prison generated
products end up attached to trendy and nationally known labels
like No Fear, Lee Jeans, Trinidad Tees, and other well known
U.S. companies. After deductions, many prisoners like Cole and
Thomas earn about $60 for an entire month of nine-hour days.
In short, hiring out prisoners has become big business. And it's
booming. . .

For the tycoons who have invested
in the prison industry, it has been like finding a pot of gold.
They don't have to worry about strikes or paying unemployment,
health or worker's comp insurance, vacation or comp time. All
of their workers are full time, and never arrive late or are
absent because of family problems; moreover, if prisoners refuse
to work, they are moved to disciplinary housing and lose canteen
privileges. Most importantly, they lose "good time"
credit that reduces their sentence. . .

Critics argue that inmate labor
is both a potential human rights abuse and a threat to workers
outside prison walls claiming, inmates have no bargaining power,
are easily exploited and once released are frequently barred
from gainful employment because of a felony conviction.

In one California lawsuit, for
example, two prisoners have sued both their employer and the
prison, saying they were put in solitary confinement after refusing
to labor in unsafe working conditions. In a nutshell John Fleckner
of Operation Prison Reform labels the growing trend "capitalist
punishment -- slavery re-envisioned."

For black men in their 20s and early
30s without a high school diploma, the incarceration rate is
so high  nearly 40 percent nationwide  that theyre
more likely to be behind bars than to have a job.

From 1999-2010,the
total U.S. prison population rose 18 percent, an increase largely
reflected by the "drug war" and stringent sentencing
guidelines, such as three strikes laws and mandatory minimum
sentences. However, total private prison populations exploded
fivefold during this same time period, with federal private prison
populations rising by 784 percent